


Getting Settled

by Langerhan



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Gift Giving, M/M, Mutual Pining, Nesting, Other, Pre-Apocalypse, Repression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-12
Updated: 2020-01-12
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:08:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22217539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Langerhan/pseuds/Langerhan
Summary: Warlock's new tutor is puzzled to find gifts appearing in his cottage.He knows who they're from. He just doesn't know why.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 70
Collections: IK Shenanigans, Unbalanced Humours





	Getting Settled

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SugarMagic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SugarMagic/gifts).



> To dear Sugar, who we all love very much! Glad your humours are getting more balanced!
> 
> I don't want anyone to feel disappointed when they get to the ending, but wasn't sure how to tag for it: this fic doesn't end in the two of them snuggling down together like most nesting fics. There's an Apocalypse to get to, after all. 
> 
> With thanks to [Leaves](https://archiveofourown.org/users/IdleLeaves) for the beta.

The demon Crowley was up to something.

Technically, he was always up to something – wiles, the thwarting thereof, the Arrangement, etc. – but it was rare for him to be this impudent about it. The other staff ( _staff_ , Crowley had laughed, _angel, they're called staff, not servants_. Aziraphale wasn't sure if Crowley had seen a certain box of private novellas in the bookshop when they'd be packing up, but he'd assumed as much and had subsequently chosen Brother Francis's eyebrows and teeth out of spite) would start to suspect something.

"Hullo Ms Ashtoreth, what were you doing in my cottage?"

Crowley spun around. "Erm. Nothing, Mr Cortese. I was just looking for you. Making sure you were settling in."

Mr Cortese was an Oxford-educated tutor who had coincidentally arrived the day after the Dowlings' gardener had left. Although they shared something about the eyes and had similar shocks of dandelion hair, Mr Cortese had obviously benefited from the NHS's dental care to a much greater extent than Brother Francis had ever done.

“Oh, splendidly, thank you. Everyone's been so kind these past few weeks, and young Warlock is a keen mathematician.”

“He's keen on spreading the forces of darkness,” Crowley muttered. Aziraphale could tell his heart wasn't in it. “Keen on bringing the world to its knees.”

“Perhaps,” Aziraphale agreed, “but I rather think he's been enjoying the Narnia books.”

Warlock was enjoying the battles the most, and frequently pushed for them to be more bloodthirsty, but that didn't feel relevant to the conversation.

“Well. Glad you're settling in,” Crowley said, and stalked off far more threateningly than a nanny should have been able to.

Aziraphale's cottage was almost exactly how he'd left it. A few books had been tidied, and the counters looked suspiciously clean. The main change, though, was the fluffy tartan blanket spread across his sofa. Mr Cortese didn't wear tartan, being more amenable towards pinstripe, and so wouldn't have brought such a blanket with him; the Dowlings had only supplied the furniture and enough items of crockery for him to be able to feed himself for the first few days.

Aziraphale picked the blanket up. There was nothing demonic about it whatsoever. It didn't even have the low-grade demonic hum of sweatshop labour about it – it had been woven with love and care, possibly by a little old gentleman on the coast looking to supplement his income, and had been bought for a generous amount which took into account both the effort and the artistry which went into it.

It was puzzling.

The blanket was the third new item which had found its way into Mr Cortese's cottage. The first had been a Toby jug he'd admired some time in the 18th century after too many cups of ale ( _Crowley, look, it's the king! Crowley, you can drink from his head!_ ) which had turned up on his table one evening. When asked, Crowley shrugged and claimed to have stolen it. Aziraphale had used it in a history lesson and had seen the corner of Nanny Ashtoreth's mouth turn up when Warlock described it to her later.

The second item was 'A Child's Garden of Verse'. It was a sweet little copy; watercolour illustrated with a ribbon bookmark, but nothing particularly special about it. Crowley had muttered _saw it and thought of you_ as if the confession was being forcibly dragged out of him. He hadn't even attempted his usual long-winded explanation about how buying second hand was all part of an evil plan to put modern publishers out of business.

Returning to the cottage after his lessons with Warlock to find a gift and the whole place cleaner and tidier than he'd left it was starting to become a pattern. (Aziraphale swung the blanket round his shoulders and relaxed on his sofa into the heavy weight of it.) It was _kind_ , and his wily adversary wasn't kind. (Don't think about the books. Don't think about the Bastille. _Don't think about–_ ) Or at least, wasn't supposed to be kind. If it was a temptation, it was Crowley's worst one since his turn as a travel agent in the Judaean Desert. Bringing across things Aziraphale liked and needed – well. It could be encouraging avarice. Probably. Technically.

In his bookshop, he'd have known where to look. Would have been able to consult a grimoire or two in case it was a demonic thing, followed by a textbook or two in case it was a psychology thing. (For a _Crowley thing_ , he had only his journal, glasses of wine, and some thoughts he kept locked away more safely than anything in his shop. He would pull them out when everyone was asleep, to examine as closely as Babylonian parchment. He kept them hidden in languages long forgotten or never learnt.)

The pattern felt like deja vu, dizzyingly familiar. When he tried to find it again, to put a pin in it, to guess the next shape, it slipped from his hands. He poured a glass of wine and opened a novel instead.

The next time he met with Gabriel, the archangel was his usual brand of condescendingly bullish. At least he seemed pleased that Aziraphale had persuaded one of the maids to cut her hair short and stop letting the new gardener flirt with her. ( _My dear, if that's how you feel, I know a lovely young lady I could introduce you to_ – but Gabriel had always been keen on the virgin saints. He'd never stopped to question how broadly people might interpret the concept of _virginity_.)

"I was wondering," Aziraphale said slowly, twisting his hands with nervous energy, "if I could ask you something. About, ah, my adversary."

"He bothering you again?" Gabriel asked, already looking bored.

"No! No. It's just, he's been – well, I'm sure you'll think me ever so silly for noticing, but he's been – bringing someone presents."

"Probably tempting them. It's what demons do, Aziraphale."

"Ah. Yes, maybe." He cast about wildly for how to ask the question he wanted to ask. "Only I think the someone he's been bringing presents for is – another demon. Crowley's been stealing things, silly things, really, and taking them to this other demon, who isn't a higher rank than him or anything, and it's things like blankets and soft pillows, and I think they're friends, or rather, they're working together, and I was just..."

"Aziraphale. What are you asking here?"

"Well, I just thought since I should know as much as possible about my terrible adversary, who is really rather dreadful and no good, do you know – what that might be about?"

Gabriel stood up from the chair and stretched. The cafe's seats were all mismatched in a quirky sort of way which somehow always left him without one large enough for him. Fortunately, Aziraphale always told Crowley when they were planning a meeting, so the two of them had never run into each other there.

"Y'know what? You've done some good work this month, sport. I'll have one of our demonology guys look into it. And make sure to leave a tip, I think I broke part of that stupid chair."

When Aziraphale got home his liquor cabinet had been well stocked, his soup bowl from lunch had been cleaned away, and his bed had been made. The last one was fine; really, it was. Young Warlock, Harriet and Thaddeus all had their beds made for them every morning by staff whose names they barely knew. There was no strange intimacy in realising his adversary's hands had been all over the sheets where he would lay his body down. He wouldn't lie awake imagining Crowley bent over the bed, tucking the corners in, maybe grumbling a little at how messy it was. That would be ridiculous. If he lay awake in bed, it was because he wanted to finish his novel and the bed was the comfiest place to do so. If he lay there nude, shivering despite the warmth of the blankets, imagining a demon's kind hands running over the creases where he'd lay with the sheet between his legs – that was nobody's business but his own.

Whoever Gabriel's demonology guy was, they were obviously busy, because it was a few weeks before Aziraphale heard anything more. In the meantime, the pattern continued: a clean cottage, a gift, a clean cottage, a bunch of flowers, a bunch of flowers, a _little something_ (little somethings Aziraphale had seen once and his heart had lurched for), a gentle inquiry, a growled denial ( _it's nothing, just thought you'd like it, your cottage is cold, listen, angel, you're pretending to be an adult man, you need to take better care_ ).

When the answer finally got through Aziraphale's fax machine – which he never knew he had, but wasn't about to question – it was short, but it had the information he was looking for. The deja vu intensified, something just out of reach that he knew he'd once known.

Tributes. Offerings. Courting. Nesting. ( _Breeding infernal offspring_ – but no, that was a thought better left under the sheets.) Somehow, somewhere, Crowley had become confused.

The next time Nanny Astoreth came to Mr Cortese's cottage, Aziraphale was waiting on the sofa. His lesson with Warlock had wrapped up early and he'd assumed he'd be able to make it home before Crowley got there. These days, Crowley barely bothered to sneak; none of the staff had even noticed, but if they had, the pretty nanny visiting the charming tutor was far less scandalous than her hooking up with the inbred-looking gardener.

“Ah, Crowley,” Aziraphale said brightly, causing his favourite demon to bless and almost drop the box he was carrying, “won't you come in? I have a new French press I've been ever so eager to try, and I know you're quite the connoisseur.”

Crowley made a mouthy, desperate sort of noise and stepped inside.

“Angel. I was just,” he said, gesturing at the glasses he'd brought with him.

“Oh, how lovely!” Aziraphale exclaimed, ignoring Crowley's dramatic full-body shudder at the word, “It's been a while since we've had a drink together. I'll get the Scotch.”

“No. I mean, yes. Scotch.”

Crowley wandered over to the sofa and picked at the tartan blanket draped over one side. Aziraphale felt something lurch in his chest. He poured Crowley a drink and managed not to discorporate when their fingers touched. They drank; talked about Warlock's development; drank some more.

“So,” Aziraphale said. “I wanted to say thank you. For all the presents.”

“S'nothing,” Crowley muttered. “Just some things I thought you'd like.”

“I do. I love them.”

He looked across and saw Crowley making _that face_ , the desperate, drowning, dangerous face he'd become so angelically good at ignoring. “You love them?”

“I do,” Aziraphale repeated, “very much so. I just think perhaps they might be the result of something a little demonic.”

Crowley opened his mouth and waved his glass about. “Aziraphale.”

“I know, you're a demon, whatever you do is very demonic, my dear. I'm just,” he paused, the thing lurching in his chest again, clawing at the edges, “we're both godfathers, you see. To young Warlock. And I think maybe your, y'know, demonic instincts might be doing something you don't realise.”

“My demonic instincts,” Crowley said flatly.

“Four years, Crowley. Until the end of the world. I think maybe your demonic instincts have just got a little confused by us both being godfathers, and that you're... well. It doesn't matter.” 

“Not confused,” Crowley muttered. He'd taken his glasses off earlier but now they were back on his face. “But fine. No more presents.”

“I think that's for the best.” On a whim, he held out his hand. Not at all whimsically, Crowley took it.


End file.
